Naming Your Newborn
When I was pregnant with my son it seemed like we had him named from the day he was born. In reality we had picked preliminary names about a month prior to our "big" ultrasound to find out if we were having a boy or a girl. In the first several months after we announced we were pregnant, it seemed like everyone around us had advice for naming children. Some of it went logically of "don't name them after celebrities" and "make sure the initials do not spell anything you don't want associated with your child like DAM and such". Others were not so helpful with their advice and told us to name our children out of the Bible only.
We decided that the way we were going to do this was to make out a top 10 list of each gender and then try them with the middle names we wanted for their sound. My twin added that you need to be able to "yell" the full name while running full speed so don't try for the longest baby name competition of "Supercalafragalisticespialadocious". With our second it seemed like it was so much harder to name her. I mean we had my son's name picked out that month in advanced and here she was unnamed until the 40th week of pregnancy and we had known we were having a girl since I was 21 weeks.
I have seen some creative ways to spell common names such as Brie being spelled Br7ie and yes I can see where this can cause a problem in school. You need to be aware of the potential name calling and torment your child could go through if you give them an unusual name or even a name that seems common but isn't as popular anymore. I personally do not agree with naming children their first names in generations such as Jr, III, etc but middle names are fine. My husband's family name the first born son's middle name is Richard. With our daughter he wanted her middle name to be Lynn since that is his mom's and my middle name. The biggest help I found was picking the middle name first then finding a first name that went with both the middle and last name. Say the name combination out loud to do the sanity sounding because names that look good together on paper don't necessarily sound good together. The names should flow and not sound awkward to you and if they do then that isn't the right combination. Sometimes you might have to wait until you hold the baby to name them because the perfect name doesn't present itself until then or the name doesn't seem to fit the baby in the end.
There are two major websites I recommend checking out for potential names:
The Social Security Administration's website lists the most popular baby names by year and gender. A child is less likely to be made fun of if their are others in the school with the name.
http://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/ has a great name database which includes the origin, meaning, and it's rating by others. They even have their own list of naming tips that covers just about every situation.
I also used the books:
The Complete Book of Baby Names
Good luck finding that perfect name for your little bundle of joy.
